Kevin O’Connor

Within this Ethnography I will describe, in-depth, the effect the internet has had upon candidates of past elections as well as those that are not currently finished. Included will be the results of a survey that I have conducted. The analysis will also include how the internet has affected certain political scandals that have risen, how it has forced changes among political campaigns pertaining to the amount of advertising allowed as well as how fundraising may be conducted, and especially how it has increased the spread of negative information. Conclusively and perhaps most importantly, I will describe a recent trend that indicates Americans are using the internet and the information it provides more and more to formulate their opinions on political matters.

In the past, political figures and campaign managers juggled ideas on how to best reach the American public with their views and opinions on how to improve the way of life for every citizen. Many of these tactics are still used today, including door to door service by way of volunteers, lawn signs, billboards, telephone calls, and, most effectively, advertisements on television programs. With the inclusion of the internet to this formula, Politicians have found a much more cost effective way of reaching out. E-mail has replaced door to door preaching in most respects, and text messaging has become a better outlet for information and awareness than the nagging phone calls. Also, with the amount of programming increasing nearly every day among cable television companies, reaching large selective audiences has become difficult. Thus, the Internet’s ability to broadcast these candidates has become a more appealing way to save money and potentially reach more voters. Fragments of the American public can be targeted easier using the internet than the television due to the fact that many people of either political party choose to watch the same programs, where as on the internet, the choice is made by the user as to which candidate they care to follow. As said in a New York Times article, the expense of television advertising has become less and less of an option. “Analysts say the campaign television advertisement, already diminishing in influence with the proliferation of cable stations, faces new challenges as campaigns experiment with technology that allows direct messaging to more specific audiences, and through unconventional means” (Nagourney).

Campaigns are also targeting social networks such as the constantly growing in popularity network Facebook as ways of focusing on possible campaigners, using them to vault support, and asking them to reach out to others. However, there is one aspect of the internet that politicians have begun to focus most of their energy on: bloggers.

Not only do candidates these days have their own blogs, but they are also paying very close attention to the blogs of the American public. The open forum the internet creates and that the blogs control has become the new outlet for debate. The blogs as well as the responses to them have created an invaluable way of capturing the desires of the American public. Instead of extending surveys to the people while collecting and calculating the responses, campaigns may now simply monitor the hot topics of blogs across the internet to understand what the public considers to be the most important aspect of the election as well as which problems must be dealt with first. As stated in a research report on the possible gains the internet creates pertaining to politics, the Pew Research Center reports that “Nearly a quarter of Americans (24%) say they regularly learn something about the campaign from the internet, almost the double the percentage from a comparable point in the 2004 campaign (13%)” (SOURCE). So clearly, a positive impact that the internet has created for political campaigns and debates is the increase in knowledge that Americans are gaining from the open forums. A more educated voter makes for a better election and voting process, and this aspect of the internets influence cannot go un-noticed.

To further explore the effects the internet has had on the most recent political races I conducted a survey of over 40 college students. Various questions were asked pertaining to the current Presidential race between Barack Obama and John McCain. I began with the most basic of questions: Are you planning on voting in the upcoming Presidential Election?

As was expected, every single person surveyed said that they were going to vote. This set the stage nicely for the questions that followed. The next question that I asked got more specific: Do you research politics and the issues on the internet?





As seen in the graph, 74% of the people surveyed said that they used the internet as a research tool for the upcoming election. The results of that question alone are enough reason for every politician to recognize the internet as a necessary outlet for their information. I had expected the number to be far less and more along the lines of the survey conducted by the Pew Research Center. I believe the reasoning behind the increased percentage in my survey directly relates to the age group of those interviewed. Most college students use their computers every day, thus there are more opportunities for people of this specific age group to be inclined to research a subject such as politics on the internet. Of those that answered yes to the previous question, I followed up with another, asking them if they chose to research their opposing party’s views on the web.

Previous to this question I had asked the people who were surveyed to say whether or not they had chosen a candidate already for the election, and everyone questioned answered yes. I had imagined that the yes numbers for the follow up question would have been a little higher in this case. These results give reason to believe that the internet is used as a tool to re-affirm ones beliefs in a candidate rather than helping them decide between the two who they should vote for. Lastly, I asked whether they preferred the television for political information or the internet.

These results were somewhat expected. With the increase in popularity in shows such as the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, college age students are becoming avid watchers of such programs. Also, the average college student spends more time watching the television than they do browsing the internet, so stumbling upon a network station with election coverage is very feasible. So even though the television is still a necessary outlet for politicians to use in campaigning, it is evident that the internet is becoming nearly as valuable.

However, not all aspects of the internet are helpful to politicians and their campaigns. With a massive increase in the popularity of blogs, the good word is spread, but it is not spread nearly as far as the bad word can be. Political scandal and candidates bashing each other has been a practice for centuries, but never as prevalent a problem as it is for candidates these days. Because of the lack of regulation that the internet has, bloggers have free reign to analyze and comment on whatever they choose. Thus, it is easy to mistake one person’s opinion for fact. And yes, it is true that bloggers can choose which stories they wish to talk about and which ones not to, but in all honesty, the stories that get chosen more often than not are the scandals and the so-called yellow journalism of the 21st century. It is also true that mainstream media chooses to follow these scandals, but it seems as though they choose to do so only until another issue arises. Scandals on mainstream media and the network television political programs seemingly last only for a few days. That is different with blogs. As stated in a review by The George Washington University of Washington, D.C., partisan blogs help provide the scandals longevity. “One type of story that bloggers focus on a substantial amount is scandal coverage. Traditional media also covers these stories, but often they do so to a lesser extent or for a shorter period of time. This, at face value, would seem to mean that the two types of media approach their coverage differently. Especially, when combined with the fact that the vast majority of political blogs are explicitly partisan, it would follow that the influence of blogs on scandal coverage is different from that of the mainstream media” (Kellner).

So as the internet grows in popularity, and more and more blogs are read every day, the bad word spreads from coast to coast. Fortunately enough for these candidates, the internet creates the opportunity for their voices to be heard by more voters and mostly in a manner of their choosing, proving that the web has the ability to do more good than harm.

Conclusively, as the internet grows in popularity and more Americans become accustomed to it, the opportunity for debate grows. What makes this country great is the ability for every citizen to choose a candidate who will best represent them in government. The more that every citizen is able to learn about each political candidate, whether the information is good or bad, the more educated their decision can be. So even though the open forum of the internet can allow for many falsehoods to occur due to the fact that it is largely un-regulated, the fact that more Americans are choosing to use the sites that are credited proves that the country and the decisions of her citizens are headed in the right direction.


WORKS CITED
1.) Nagourney, Adam. “Politics Faces Sweeping Change via the Web”. The New York Times. 31 March, 2006.
2.) Kohut, Andrew. “The Internet Gains in Politics”. Pew Internet & American Life Project. 1 January, 2008.
3.) Kellner, Alex. “The Influence of Partisan Blogs and the Mainstream Media in Political Scandal Coverage”. 8 (2008): 61.
4.) The survey was conducted using the website survey.vt.edu.